Mr. Speaker, my constituents paid over three dollars a gallon for gas last year.  Isn’t that enough?  Do they really need to be paying a second time with their tax dollars? 

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Last year, big oil saw higher profits than any company in the history of the world.  Yet we’re writing them welfare checks.

The United States is 65% dependent on foreign oil—worse than we’ve ever been before— sending 800 million dollars a day to the Middle East.  This situation creates conflicts of interest in crucial matters of security and diplomacy whereby we, The United States of America, are beholden to nations who do not represent our best interests; still, we’re cutting a welfare check to big oil.

When we embrace the way of the future and dedicate ourselves to developing alternative, renewable, clean, more affordable energy sources, America will create more than ¼ million new jobs, generate 30 billion dollars in new worker wages, and finally stop funding both sides of the war on terror.  And despite all that, we are still using tax payer dollars to hand a huge welfare check to billionaire oil companies.

The CLEAN Energy Act takes the crucial first steps to ending this policy and I urge my colleagues to support it.  I yield back the balance of my time.